‘But the accident, Mum. What happened?’
‘We were mucking around on the farm one day, you know, hooning about on the dirt tracks on the motorbike. We’d made our way to the highest point, where there was a view down to the riveron one side of the hilltop, and forest and farmland the other way all the way to the mountain range. I had news. I wanted to tell Trev about it out in the open, where we could be alone.’
‘What news? That you were pregnant?’
‘Trev was freaked. He packed up our picnic and started shouting at me to get on the bike or I’d be walking home. He took off down the hill, we hit scree, and we skidded. I went one way. Trev and the motorbike went the other. I had to leave him there to run and get help but …’
‘He died,’ Kirsty filled in quietly.
Terri’s hands had made her way to the woollen tea cosy, as though they needed to feel the leftover warmth of the unpoured tea. ‘It was bad, Kirsty. It was so bad that I … well. I didn’t even stick around for the funeral. When they pulled the sheet over his head in that hospital room, I took off for the highway and thumbed a lift. I didn’t care where I was going; I just wanted to be someplace else.’
She looked up. ‘I think … that’s when I invented the family curse. It was easier than acknowledging the truth: I was to blame for your father’s death.’